Dredging machinery includes an elongated crane with a rotating head with teeth for cutting through mud, sand, rocks, etc., at the bottom of a waterway. The teeth, after some usage, may break or become worn and must be replaced. It has long been a practice to make the teeth in two parts, the inner part being a tooth adapter attached to the dredging head and the outer part being a tooth cap that can be replaced quickly when it wears out or is broken. Tooth assemblies of this general type are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,708,895 and 4,335,532.
The advances in this art have usually been made in the design of the adapter and the tooth, and the manner in which the two are joined together in a working relationship. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,708,895 the tooth and the adapter are joined and separated by a simple linear axial movement and then retained in place by a key perpendicular to and passing through the axis. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,532 the tooth and the adapter are joined together by a helical twisting movement and held in place by a horseshoe key. Neither of these systems has proved to be entirely satisfactory and so a new assembly has been developed.
It is an object of this invention to provide a novel excavating tooth assembly. It is another object of this invention to provide a novel excavating tooth assembly that is easier to assemble, disassemble and maintain and at the same time is more secure in its locking system. Still other objects will appear in the more detailed description which follows.